ATG People in the News 12/14/17

Library Technology Guides reports that “following 30 years of service in the library industry as a developer, entrepreneur, and public library advocate, Bill Schickling, Innovative EVP of Business Development, has announced he will retire effective December 31, 2017.

Bill started his career as a software developer for Gaylord Bros. in 1987. Together with a small team of developers, he created a set of products that many small to medium public libraries would adopt as their first automation solution. After the success of SuperCAT, GALAXY, and Gaylord’s first Web-based OPAC, Bill led a talented group of librarians and developers to replace the GALAXY system with the Polaris Integrated Library System. During this time, Bill transitioned from software developer and team leader to entrepreneur, president, and CEO of the newly formed standalone company, Polaris Library Systems.

The Polaris philosophy of “Helping Libraries Serve Their Communities” became a mantra that would position Polaris as the number one company and product for medium and large public libraries, as ranked by Marshall Breeding’s Library Technology Reports, published by the American Library Association’s ALA TechSource.

“I owe all of Polaris’ success to the hard-working individuals and teams headquartered in Syracuse, NY,” said Schickling. “We focused on our customers and that fueled our growth.”

That growth and success caught the attention of competitors and, in 2014, Polaris was acquired by Innovative Interfaces, where the Polaris product and the high-touch customer support Schickling and his team originated continues today…”

According to KnowledgeSpeak “After 22 years as Editor-in-Chief of Nature, Sir Philip Campbell will move to a new role as Editor-in-Chief of Springer Nature in the summer of 2018 and continue to lead the Springer Nature Editorial Advisory Group and maintain responsibility for editorial policies across Springer Nature. Recruitment for a new Editor-in-Chief for Nature and Nature Research is underway.

During his time at Nature, Sir Philip has been responsible for numerous developments including ensuring Nature has a voice in important research community discussions across the globe; driving efforts to improve reproducibility in the Nature-branded journals and in publishing more broadly; stimulating the development of the Nature-branded research journal portfolio and the journals themselves; developing and steering a prize to recognise excellence in scientific mentoring in different countries, now in its fourteenth year; and overseeing the famed publication of the draft sequence of the human genome in 2001. Following the merger in 2015 to form Springer Nature, Sir Philip has also been responsible for the foundation and delivery of the Springer Nature Editorial Advisory Group, which oversees and creates editorial policies and standards across the organisation …”

KnowledgeSpeak also notes that “healthcare knowledge provider BMJ has announced Helen Crisp as the new Editor-in-Chief of BMJ Open Quality. Helen Crisp is an expert in quality improvement in healthcare, working as a writer and editor, strategic consultant, programme developer and trainer. BMJ Open Quality is a new open access journal dedicated to publishing high quality, peer reviewed healthcare improvement work…”